


Family Holidays Aren't All They're Cracked Up To Be

by The_Mouse_of_Anon



Series: AquaFan Week (Devilfish Ahoy!) [2]
Category: Teen Titans (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: AquaFan Week 2016, Beginning Friendship, Day 2: Family, La'gaan and Eddie bond over not really having any family, M/M, a really sucktastic Thanksgiving, brief hint of half-Native rez kid Roy, lousy family holiday, pre-Devilfish, tw death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:15:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9232445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Mouse_of_Anon/pseuds/The_Mouse_of_Anon
Summary: Family was a concept La’gaan didn’t like to think about, at least not in the sense that it might apply to him— especially when it came to family holidays. Atlantean family holidays were easy enough to avoid, but surfacer holidays tended to catch him by surprise. Avoiding it all was the easy part, but he wasn't counting on a certain fire-wielder sticking around base rather than taking off like everyone else.((Written for Day 2 of AquaFan Week 2016.))





	

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline-wise, this fic takes place prior to _Tattoos: A Conversation_ and fairly soon after Eddie has joined the team, so be prepared for La'gaan to be a pissy mer-child. Also, for anyone curious as to why Roy is pissed off about Thanksgiving, I revived the old comics concept that he's a half-Native (Navajo) rez kid (and as a result has serious issues with celebrating 'Native Genocide Day').

Family was a concept La’gaan didn’t like to think about, at least not in the sense that it might apply to him. It wasn’t that he had been orphaned at a young age that bothered him (or at least it wasn’t the primary reason why), but it was more that every person he had ever really been able to consider family in one way or another had been taken from him. It was something he didn’t like talking about, even with his closest friends. He usually told them he had no family and left it at that— and that was _if_ they got close enough for him to feel like he could trust them with personal details. For anyone who wasn’t that close to him, he might as well have been a wall of Poseidonis-made concrete for all that he gave away about his past.

As such, he had a habit of ignoring most Atlantean family-based holidays and usually found another way to spend his time. Surfacer holidays though… those were harder for him to predict and tended to blindside him more easily. He considered himself fortunate that he hadn’t been tugged into one of the various holiday parties most of the other members of the team were going to. Truth be told, he would have felt more uncomfortable at one of those parties than away from them— which led to him being one of the only ones in-base. Kaldur was off spending time with one of the Roys (La’gaan hadn’t been paying much attention, but he’d thought he’d heard something along the lines of Roy calling the holiday a ‘shit holiday celebrating genocide’— he hadn’t wanted to ask), so he wasn’t there.

Of course the fact that the base was quieter than usual was unsettling, but it was only for a few days. He’d manage. That said, he didn’t expect to see Eddie parked on the couch in the living room, scrolling through Netflix and muttering under his breath, “No. No. No. That was a turkey. I can’t believe they put that up. No. No. _Definitely_ no. Ugh. Can’t believe he got paid for that.”

In many ways the newest member of the team was a mystery. The fact that he was there was surprising. As cheerful and easy-to-get-along-with as he was, he didn’t really seem the type to avoid family holidays.

“Didn’t think _you’d_ be here,” La’gaan said bluntly, not even bothering to avoid sounding antagonistic.

Eddie looked back over his shoulder and the back of the couch at the atlantean. He didn’t look like he was even bothered in the slightest by La’gaan’s tone. “What can I say? Thanksgiving’s really not my thing. Not much to be ‘thankful’ for. So, better to be here. At least that way I don’t have to act like nothing’s bothering me if I’m in a lousy mood.”

“You? In a ‘lousy’ mood? And sharks shit rainbows,” La’gaan scoffed. It was one of the things that annoyed the hell out of La’gaan; Eddie for whatever reason tended to be relentlessly cheerful. So far as La’gaan had seen, even when he was pissed off Eddie tended to have a tight control on his temper. It was dishonest enough to make him paranoid. 

That said, he was not expecting Eddie to burst into a fit of laughter in response to his comment. What was more, it was _honest_ laughter. It took him a few long moments to collect himself enough to be able to talk coherently through his laughter, but even then he sounded like he was about to dissolve into another cackling fit. “I’m going to have to remember that one.”

La’gaan cocked his head to the side. He’d been an antagonistic and rude little shit, _on purpose_ , and Eddie was laughing. He didn’t know if it was a surfacer thing, or if it was because of the fact that Eddie looked like the surfacer stereotype of a demon, but thanks to that response he did know that Eddie had a slightly twisted sense of humor. Since being blunt seemed to work, it only made sense to stick with it. Crossing his arms, La’gaan said in a near-demand, “You don’t have anyone else to inflict yourself on? No one to go home to?”

“Maybe I’m here for the same reasons you are,” Eddie said. Though he kept his tone light, there was an iron edge to it.

“Somehow I doubt that,” La’gaan retorted. Interesting as it was to have provoked Eddie to bristle, it wasn’t enough to get him to back down.

Eddie arched an eyebrow. “Careful, or I might just start throwing out guesses as to why you’re sticking around when everyone else is gone.” And there he was, snapping right back into his cheery playfulness. It was maddening.

“This is why sharks shitting rainbows is more likely than you being in a lousy mood. You can’t keep a bad mood for more than five seconds.”

Eddie turned so he was facing La’gaan more head-on, one of his arms resting on the back of the couch. “It’s a way to cope— same as you and your snarling. And honestly? Better me being in a good mood than setting every fifth thing on fire.”

“So you just lie through your teeth rather than being honest about how you actually feel.” The contempt practically rolled from his tone.

Eddie aimed an unenthused look at La’gaan, sighed, and when he spoke it was in a deadpan tone. “Fine. You wanna know why I’m here? Most people I could care to be with right now are dead. And you want to know why I think you’re here? Because like me you’ve pretty much got nothing and no one, and you’d rather not think about it because thinking about it sucks worse than having to take a trip through a sewer.”

That hit like a punch to the gut. La’gaan was torn between the temptation to tell him off and the desire to punch him outright. At the same time, he didn’t want to do either; he didn’t want to give Eddie the satisfaction. Instead he settled on an outright glare.

“And that just proves I’m right,” Eddie said with a wry smirk. He considered for a few moments, not seeming to care how thick the silence between them was. Finally, he said, “Do you want to know what’s really pathetic?”

La’gaan felt completely off-balance. Eddie had pressed on a sore spot to make his point and then just let it go. It was weird.

At La’gaan’s confused look, Eddie continued his previous thought while vaguely motioning toward the TV with one hand. “The fact that I’m looking through all those damned films trying to find only the ones put out by Bloomberg Studios so I can temporarily let myself be numb and try to avoid letting thoughts of my aunt hit me like a ton of bricks.”

If it was possible, La’gaan was even more confused. “What does your aunt have to do with movies from a specific studio?”

Eddie gave a smile full of morbid humor. “In case you missed it, my last name’s Bloomberg. Bloomberg Studios only exists because of my aunt. So… sick game. Trying to avoid thinking about her by trying to find a movie to watch that she had a hand in making, which only reminds me of her anyway. Proof: I don’t always cope in the best way.”

“…That _is_ sick,” La’gaan quietly agreed as he walked around the edge of the couch to join him.

Eddie eyed La’gaan curiously. “So. Who did you lose? Everyone?”

La’gaan didn’t know what he’d expected, but he knew it wasn’t that. Still, the blunt honesty was an improvement. “Everyone,” he agreed.

“Well that sucks worse than a drugged cat on a dresser.”

“ _What_?” La’gaan was thoroughly confused. He knew he had a reasonable grasp of English, but that specific idiom made absolutely _no_ sense to him at all.

Eddie gave a weak laugh. “Sorry. Reference to a movie my aunt made. I happened to be on set. It was just one scene that kept getting screwed up over and over. Kind of turned into a way to say that something was screwed up, frustrating, upsetting, and that it sucked beyond belief. So ‘sucks worse than a drugged cat on a dresser.’ It kind of stuck.”

La’gaan shook his head. He was trying not to be amused, but that humor through raw pain was something La’gaan was entirely too familiar with. “Lost her recently?”

“When I was fourteen. When’d you lose… everyone?”

“Too young. Four, six, three when I was seven, nine… I didn’t stop losing people until I was ten. By then everyone was gone. Happened again with Tula’s death… Thought it had happened in a worse way when Kaldur had to play ‘traitor’.” His father, his mother, two friends and their mother (the closest he’d had to an aunt and cousins), the closest he’d gotten to another father… Just mentioning them in the abstract hurt. The idea of going into the details was one he shied away from. The mention alone was something he hadn’t even said to Kaldur despite the years of trust and friendship between them. Then again, there were some things he just didn’t want to risk burdening others with. For some reason though, La’gaan had the feeling that Eddie could take it. Too much to think about, and too many thoughts he didn’t feel like getting into until later.

Eddie snorted, the hint of a morbid laugh escaping him. “I think I’m going to agree with Roy’s rant earlier. Thanksgiving is a shit holiday, especially when your family’s dead.”

“Something we can agree on.” It didn’t matter that La’gaan didn’t completely get the explanation behind the surfacer holiday; no, it was far more important that he’d realized that Eddie was just as screwed up and alone as he was. Glancing from Eddie to the TV and then back again, he asked, “So, you wanna watch a movie? Not like either of us have anything better to do.”

Eddie gave a genuine smile. It wasn’t the smile of someone unhurt, but more the smile of someone who was going to be okay despite that hurt. “Sure. Any preferences?”

“Just so long as it isn’t one of those ‘family holiday’ movies I think we’ll be fine.”

“Do dumb disaster films count? I know some stupidly hilarious ones involving sharks…”


End file.
